This is real? This isn’t an early April Fools’ Day joke? A bear actually ingested cocaine and there’s a movie about it… Incredible. Add Cocaine Bear to your Must-See Movies of 2023 list immediately.
“On a rampage for blow and blood. Meet COCAINE BEAR.”
According to Kentucky for Kentucky, ex-narcotics cop turned drug smuggler Andrew Thornton II’s parachute didn’t open and he plunged to his death. Andrew was wearing a bulletproof vest and had cocaine in a duffel bag when he was discovered dead in someone’s yard in Knoxville. A short while later, a black bear was also discovered dead as the result of eating an incredibly large amount of Thornton’s cocaine.
The bizarre story of the black bear, nicknamed Pablo EskoBear, continued after the poor creature had been stuffed and put on display at the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area visitors center. EskoBear’s body ultimately moved from that location to a pawn shop to Waylon Jennings’ possession to a Vegas mansion owned by Ron Thompson to a Chinese medicine shop to its final – hopefully – location in a Kentucky mall.
Universal Pictures offers this synopsis of the film version of Cocaine Bear’s life:
“Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild dark comedy finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists, and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500-pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow … and blood.”
The cast includes Keri Russell (The Americans), O’Shea Jackson, Jr. (Straight Outta Compton), Christian Convery-Jennings (Sweet Tooth), Alden Ehrenreich (Solo: A Star Wars Story), and Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Modern Family). Brooklynn Prince (The Florida Project), Isiah Whitlock Jr. (BlacKkKlansman), Kristofer Hivju (Game of Thrones), Hannah Hoekstra (Charlie’s Angels), and Aaron Holliday (Sharp Objects), (The Americans) and Ray Liotta (The Many Saints of Newark) also star.
Elizabeth Banks (Pitch Perfect 2) directs from a screenplay by Jimmy Warden (The Babysitter: Killer Queen). Miller, Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, Max Handelman, Brian Duffield, and Aditya Sood produce, with Robin Mulcahy Fisichella, Alison Small, and Nikki Baida executive producing.
Cocaine Bear opens in theaters on February 24, 2023.
